{A Wattpad Featured Book}
***
Her heart or her people. Only she can decide.
Hated, cursed, outcasted. It was Eleena Asterin's life ever since she was blamed to have betrayed her village. So when she is offered a task to earn back her honour and prid...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
(Under Rewriting)
A Few Years Ago
Run Eleena. Run and don't come back.
My father's last words echoed in my ears as I ran, the twig snaps and my frantic wheezing had long since replaced my family's shrieks.
The forest was now a tangle of branches and leaves, disrupted only by the few patches of thorny brambles or periodically, berry shrubs.
Only a few minutes of daylight remained, darkness would soon envelop everything. The sun was already setting on the horizon, causing a tinge of orange and pink to the skies. It didn't matter to me though, time was already slipping out of my grasps.
I sprinted further into the darkening woods, peering once in a while over my shoulder to see the once faint glow of the villagers' torches becoming brighter. It took most of my lasting will to keep my legs moving, trying to cover as much land before nightfall. My strength had been drained long before I had started this race.
I'd spent the last few minutes running without pausing, my legs already protesting against my mind to stop. We'd been playing this game of cat and mouse for a while now--hour after hour, the villagers had been chasing after me, their unrelenting focus on capturing me getting to their senses. To be ensnared by them would have been child's play, yet it was a trap that would result in saying goodbye to my life.
The bounty on my head was too high for the villagers to ignore, especially if they were poor. It was not just that the villagers despised us Asterins, but they were too afraid of facing the village Elders' wrath. For the Elders were the rulers of the town and they could do as they pleased.
The thudding of footsteps of the villagers now grew in volume as I kept running, pushing off stray leaves and sticks away from my face, dangling from above. I quickened my pace, perilously trying to get away from them. I needed more time too desperately to bother about resting. There were just seconds left before obscurity encompassed all.
I couldn't help but think it was too quiet--the forest was too quiet, the only sound of my movement hung in the air. I realised the villagers had stopped, no rustle of leaves or the squelching of mud to be heard from behind me.
I edged around a carcass, the creature's big eyes stared blankly at the stars, flies indulging in its bloodied flank. A chunk of meat was ripped out from its thigh, fresh blood still oozing from the wound. Not from an animal, no. It was something bigger, something not entirely from this land.
A shiver slithered down my spine at the thought. Faeries, it had to be faeries. Those foul creatures managed to sneak past the barrier into the human realm.
Warnings of the townsfolk pealed in my head. A sudden drop of animals to hunt scaring them. Brutal slashes of claws and deadly bite marks were found on dead animals that littered the forest floor. They were on the hunt, the faeries were on the hunt.
